It might not impact as many workers as the minimum-wage measures approved yesterday in six states. But to At Work blog, San Francsico's Proposition F is the most interesting new workplace-related law of Election Day 2006.

Yesterday, the "Baghdad by the Bay" became the first city to require employers to provide paid sick days, the San Francisco Examiner reports. The ordinance requires employers with 10 or fewer workers to provide a minimum 5 days of paid sick leave. Workplaces with more than 10 employees must provide at least 9 paid sick days. The time can be used to care for sick family members or domestic partners.

"Nearly half of private sector workers in this country do not have a single paid sick day, and 86 million people do not have a paid sick day that can be used to care for a sick child," said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington, D.C., in a written statement about the measure today. "Low-wage workers are especially hard hit, with three in four without any paid sick days."

Ness' partnership in 2004 issued a report entitled "Get Well Soon" that gave Oregon a D for its public employee paid-sick-leave policies and lack of paid sick time for private-sector workers. The partnership believes such a benefit important because, the report said, "employees with paid sick leave are less likely to come to work when ill and less likely to infect their colleagues."

Portland has been known to follow San Francisco's lead (Need I recall the Multnomah County Commission's move two years ago to approve gay marriages?). Will Oregon follow the Bay Area in this regard?

The measure's supporters sure hope so. Young Workers United, a nonprofit worker advocacy group that proposed the ordinance, already is working on a how-we-did-it essay to post on its website, an organizer said.

"I just think thatâ€™s something every worker in the country deserves," said Dante Grant, a City College of San Francisco student who helped draft and campaign for the proposal. "I donâ€™t think itâ€™s some out there crazy thing thatâ€™s going to kill business. ...

"One of our goals was to kind of spark a national movement," confirmed Sonya Mehta, an organizer with the group.

Added Grant: "Iâ€™m hoping it spreads. ... People have already been trying to
do this (elsewhere), and people are going to try to do this again."

UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times writes that the measure passed with a 61 percent yes vote at a time comes at a time "when businesses are reeling from a city plan that
requires employers to contribute to universal healthcare and a citywide
minimum wage boost phased in over the last few years."

Workplace Prof Blog weighs in. Ness' group says a similar proposal in Madison, Wisc., failed in June. Washington legislators introduced bills this year in the Senate and the House, though neither made it beyond a hearing. The partnership expects more states and cities to pursue mandatory sick-day measures next year.